


Liminal Space

by Clio_Codex



Series: Wandering Stars [5]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Comic), Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fallen Jedi (Star Wars), Jedi Civil War (Star Wars), M/M, Mandalorian Wars (Star Wars), Seduction to the Dark Side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28921881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clio_Codex/pseuds/Clio_Codex
Summary: "Malak had decided then.  Hating stopped the hurting or at least made you forget.And hating made you strong.  Revan had tried to keep him from the Star Forge, Alek, you let it control you.  Lies.  He was jealous, Revan, jealous because the Star Forge spoke to Malak in ways it didn’t speak to him.  Malak could feel it pulsing in his veins, the rhythm of the crystal that fueled it, felt himself growing stronger the longer he stayed. "A short look at the line between Alek who was and Malak who became.
Relationships: Alek | Darth Malak/Revan, Alek | Darth Malak/The Jedi Exile
Series: Wandering Stars [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952851
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	Liminal Space

**Author's Note:**

> Always was a bit disappointed in Malak's character in the game - too much a cartoon villain. The comic brings some depth and back story....and I just ran from there!

It was right there, Revan’s ship.He’d expect it, of course, this betrayal, maybe even wanted Malak to try to give him an excuse to strike back. 

Revan had been displeased with him again, seemed to always be these days. _Alek_ , _we have much to discuss when I return_ , he’d said before he’d left, a slight threat in his cold monotone. _Alek_.When it was just the two of them, Revan insisted on the name still.That hurt, a reminder of what should be, the thing they’d broken. Revan was, of course, only Revan now.

Revan hadn’t removed his mask that last time.Even so, Malak had felt his eyes, watching, tracing the metal line of his jaw. _Do you like what you’ve made, Revan?_ He’d brushed the edge of the mask, daring Revan to do something, anything, but he’d just stared, face hidden, and said nothing.

Malak had decided then.Hating stopped the hurting or at least made you forget.

And hating made you strong.Revan had tried to keep him from the Star Forge, _Alek, you let it control you._ Lies.He was jealous, Revan, jealous because the Star Forge spoke to Malak in ways it didn’t speak to him.Malak could feel it pulsing in his veins, the rhythm of the crystal that fueled it, felt himself growing stronger the longer he stayed.

He’d watched the battle from the bridge of his own ship, unable to contain his laughter, or rather that cruel mechanical sound that passed for his laugh, when the Jedi strike team had boarded Revan’s ship.Truly the Force was with him, wanted him to win, wanted him to take out Revan and the Jedi all in one blow.

_Admiral Karath, fire on Lord Revan’s ship._

_Sir?_

_Fire.On the bridge.I want no survivors._

The explosion was beautiful, the flashes of light against the black of space.If he’d had a mouth, Malak would have smiled.He felt it, Revan’s death; didn’t feel like he’d expected, though, thought it would hurt, but it was barely a whimper.

Later, when he was alone, Alek would blink back silent tears that knotted his throat, would wish he’d been on the bridge of the ship exploding in the emptiness of space.

Bastila Shan was on Taris and he would have her, or rather would have what she could do.The Jedi cowards had wielded her against him, thought her Battle Meditation would be his undoing.Fools. He would take Bastila like he took everything he wanted, and use her as a weapon against what she had once defended.

Taris lay below him, just a gray ball, a target, floating in the dark.He could order his fleet to fire, to glass the planet.Bastila would die at least.Revan’s ghost taunted him, _You are too undisciplined Alek.Brute force is rarely the answer._ His eyes narrowed at the man who wasn’t there. _Fuck you, Revan_. _Who’s the one who’s dead?_ Malak wiped his hand across the metal of his chin, always forgetting there was no longer flesh there.

He’d been on Taris before, of course, early in the war, had tried to recruit Jedi there to the Revanchists.This was before Revan took the name and the masks and the robes, before the star maps, before he’d forgotten how to smile. Revan had always been the serious one, Alek the one who laughed.They’d not spoken of what had passed between them on Dantooine, before they were knights.But on Taris, the man who would become Revan had smiled at him again, and Alek had known.He could still feel the ghost of fingers on the lips that were no longer there.

Taris burned.

In the beginning, the war had made sense.The Mandalorian advance had to be stopped; the innocent deserved protection and vengeance. He realized now that Revan had never actually asked him what he thought though, never asked if he wanted to go, if he thought it was right to fight. Maybe like so many things that understanding just lay unspoken between them.If they had talked, would it have mattered?

They’d been good at war, or at least Revan and Meetra had been, their minds always spinning, always knowing the enemy’s next move and how to meet it. _Focus on the big picture, Alek.Learn the enemy.Anticipate them.Think as they do._ The big picture was fuzzy to him though; even when the fighting was easy, strategy always eluded him.

After Taris, Alek had been captured by the Mandalorians.Even now he had nightmares about Demagol and Flashpoint Station, the twisted experiments, the torture. When the pain had come, he’d dreamt of being a boy, running as his village exploded into fire at the Mandalorian invaders. When he was nearly spent from the agony, he dreamt of Revan and Dantooine. 

His thick hair never came back, hair that fingers had once loved to tangle in; tattoos covered his now bare scalp.He found a new name, too, _Malak_ , something to show that he was not the man he had been, that he was ready to claim his own space in the galaxy.

He’d uncovered the corruption of some Jedi, masters who’d killed their own padawans because they feared the future, but the council refused to listen and did nothing, just as they had done with the war. _If you had listened you would not have suffered_ \- instead they chided him and shook their heads in disapproval.

It was then he’d stopped caring about the council and the Jedi, things Alek had loved. He swore before the Senate to save the Republic by any means, means that he and Revan would decide as only they could. Malak returned to Revan’s side to find him distant, deep in the robes and the mask and the war. _Observe the board, Alek; see how the pieces will move, think of what we must do to shift the tide of war._ They were generals now, victorious because they were unafraid of ruthless ambition.The Republic called them heroes; the Jedi called them falling.

Meetra was there, too, Meetra hurting and breaking like he was.He’d used her.They’d always been friends; she was Revan’s sister, his shadow, so of course Alek loved her, too.He’d not meant to make the offer he had, but they were both afraid and alone, wanting some warmth against the cold dark of all that death, some hand to hold as they fell.

He’d slipped behind her, meaning it to just be an embrace, his lips resting against her ear, silently waiting for her to choose and absolve him of the responsibility for it. When she’d turned, she had Revan’s eyes, and for a moment he forgot why they shouldn’t.By then she’d kissed him, and he’d let himself kiss her back, desiring that next best thing.He hated himself for it, for hurting her, for betraying what he really wanted.

She’d figured out the falseness of his embrace in the end, before Malachor.And yet she’d still fucked him, because they were both broken and fallen into the dark.After Malachor, he’d not been able to meet her eye, ashamed of his betrayal and lies.Then she was gone, exiled, wandering somewhere alone, silent in the Force. 

He’d found her a short time later, begged her to return, to save Revan, to save him - not that he had any right to ask after the way they’d both used her, Revan as his weapon, Alek as cheap comfort.Malak had forgotten to apologize, had failed to name his faults, and so Meetra had just stared, her icy blue eyes a cutting reminder of all the things he’d lost.

Sometimes, Alek considered what might happen if he went looking for her again, abandoned the Sith and tried to forget all that he’d done.Maybe she’d forgive him if he confessed or asked for absolution.But why should she? Malak had broken too much.

When Alek thought of home, it was always Dantooine and not Quelii and the village of his birth. It was Dantooine and the Jedi enclave where he’d found refuge from the trauma of losing his childhood to war; Dantooine where he had masters and mentors who taught and guided him; Dantooine where he’d had friends who had laughed with and loved him. 

Of course, he could never think of Dantooine without thinking of Revan, the man before that name anyway.The last time they’d been there, they’d gone into the forbidden ruins, had found the star map.Alek had known it was a bad idea, that they would never be able to turn back from the path it would lead them down, and still he’d followed.Who did he hate for that? Revan for leading?Himself for always following?

Alek had wanted to go to the place on the plains beyond the enclave, the place where Revan had first smiled and touched his face.It hurt to think of the way their fingers and lips had felt on sun-warmed skin, to remember all the possibility of what might have been.

Instead they’d gone in the ruins, chased the maps, found the Star Forge, set dark plans in motion.With each map, Alek felt Revan slip further away into himself, some place Malak couldn’t find a way to follow.Perhaps what had begun between them on Dantooine had ended there too.

Dantooine was crushed by Malak’s order, but its death did not ease the aching loss eating at Alek’s core.

Karath had called, said he had Bastila on the Leviathan.And someone else.Malak felt him as soon as his ship drew near - Revan always so loud in the Force, so overwhelmingly there, but now a presence jumbled and diminished. The Jedi had done something to him no doubt.Alek’s heart pounded; that’s why it hadn’t hurt when Revan had died, because he hadn’t.Alek should have known.Malak didn’t care.

The man who’d been Revan stared at him stupidly, no recognition in his eyes. _Do you not know who you are?_ He’d laughed, that metallic rattle.Bastila and the Republic soldier sputtered and argued.Revan gaped. _So undignified, Revan, to gawk._ Malak considered wrapping his hands around Revan’s throat, squeezing not with the Force, but with his own strength, wanting him to feel his anger and hate.

 _Do you intend to take me, Revan?Weak as you are?_ Malak circled him hungrily, daring him to light his blades.He could kill him now, end what should have ended months ago.

Revan kept staring in confusion.Funny that as he’d always been such a cocky, arrogant bastard, always had the answers.And now?Now, he was a broken husk of a man who didn’t know his own name, had no idea of the power he’d once had. _Alek?_ His voice still so familiar and yet odd in its uncertainty. Malak didn’t think Revan knew what that meant, that name, except for his eyes.Revan’s ice-blue eyes knew Alek, burned to his soul.

Malak jumped at him, but Revan parried, slow and clumsy at first compared to what he’d once been, but skilled enough to ward off the attack.Through the Force he sensed Revan wrestling with the truth, perhaps remembering the familiar flow of their strikes against each other.What else might he remember?

Revan’s eyes still burned as they fought. _Fuck._

Malak’s blade hissed closed as he snarled and backed off, not sure if he wanted Revan to run or strike him down.Bastila decided for them, hurling herself violently at him, forcing his defense.Revan stared, blades hanging loose at his sides as the bulkhead doors slammed shut.

Bastila would break to him, only a matter of time. _He will feel this through the bond_ , she’d cried in a moment of weakness.Malak had twisted her harder at that, hoping it was true.Alek had always hated hurting others, despite his physical strength, a hate solidified by his own experience at Demagol’s hands.

Malak relished making his enemies squirm in fear and pain.

Bastila was a Jedi, but not immune to pain.Her screams came stronger before falling to broken whimpers, sounds that resonated in his memories - angry words, Revan’s blade, the smell of his own burning flesh, and a noise that could no longer be a scream.

Later, he watched himself in the mirror, gazed at the ruined half of his face, the metal jaw removed. Normally a saber blow cauterized, the flesh burned clean.This wound had festered, as though infected by the very thing that had come between them. 

Some wounds never heal, never stop aching.

He knew Revan would find the maps, make his way back to the Star Forge, because Revan always got what he wanted, Revan who was all things and yet in the end perhaps was nothing.

Malak waited for him, drinking from the darkness, willing away the last pieces of Alek.


End file.
